Euroa to Yackandandah, Vic Oct 2024

Day 6 Thursday 10/10/2024 Euroa to Yackandandah, 15 – 22 clear

We get away at 8:30. MOP stays behind to wash her hair. Woody wants to buy more coffee beans in Benalla on the way. It’s one of those laid-back days. We know this highway like the back of our hands and take the turnoff not really concentrating, we’re chatting away about nothing very important when suddenly we find ourselves surrounded by paddocks and wondering who stole the Benalla. Bloody hell, it seems that we’ve taken the wrong turn at the old motel and are heading off to Shepparton or somewhere. We’re totally flummoxed and wondering how we can be lost in a town that we know so well. What a pair of eejits.

Benalla is busy with folks having coffee on the footpaths. Gosh, this town has gentrified since it was bypassed by the freeway, now when was that? Oh, God that must be 40 years ago now!

Fueled up with coffee we head north again and take the Great Alpine Road out through Tarrawingee (we must call into The Plough Inn one day) and Beechworth. The trees are bursting into bud and bloom and of course the main street is busy with tourists. It’s only another 20kms on to Yackandandah where we are given pleasant grassy sites backing onto the little Yackandandah Creek (on the opposite side of the park the sites back onto Commissioner’s Creek). Toothless and Mrs Doubtfire are already relaxing in their camp chairs on the riverbank. We all wander about town and pick up Gumtree Pies for lunch. Gumtree Pies are based here in Yack and their Lamb & Mint Pie resides high on my National perpetual pie chart. For pie aficionado’s it has strong similarities to Dunedin’s cultural icon, the Mutton pie without the suet element that drips grease down one’s arms.

Behind the Yack community owned servo there’s an old sawmill building which we’d never taken much notice of, but, it houses not only a gin & whiskey distillery but a rug maker, café, (legitimate) massage salon, the tiniest hair salon ever, and …a French bakery. The gin is good too and Mrs Doubtfire leaves clutching a bottle of saltbush & native lime gin to her bosom.

Hair washed, Mother of Pearl and chihuahua Pearl arrive in time for happy hour beside the gurgling creek. Crimson rosellas graze on the lawn and while it’s warm enough to eat dinner outside, we cook burgers on Toothless’ BBQ and laugh at MOP who cooks lamb steak for Pearl and a burger for herself!

It’s a quiet night until Woody suddenly bounds out of bed and races out the caravan door shouting “I forgot to put the legs down!”

Accom: $45.00 Towing Kms: 143Kms